Even more
by silverbelles
Summary: She hated that she was wrong. She hated even more that he was right.
1. prologue

_A/n: Just a short one-shot—not sure if it'll end up as more. Thoughts are appreciated._

She hated that she was wrong.

She hated even more that he was right.

She lay awake, replaying the day's events in her mind. It's not like it was really even that big of a deal. He surely wasn't losing any sleep over the matter. She turned over, shifting so she could see the time. The bright light of the numbers was just as harsh as it had been five minutes before. Four AM, it read.

Maybe she could write him a letter. She was good at letters. She found herself to be very articulate on paper. Of course, she was very articulate in her speech as well, but she always wrote it down before hand.

Sighing, she rose from the bed, deciding that she might as well be productive. Grabbing a spiral notebook and a pen from her desk, she sat down and began to write.

She couldn't really remember how the entire thing had started. They'd been fighting, as usual, but something was different. She remembered talking to Paul earlier, detailing the fight they'd had at breakfast. Something about the smell of her hair and him being an inconsiderate ass. It always came back to the fact that he was an inconsiderate ass.

He'd said something about her being just as bad, which she really didn't understand. No one was just as bad. He was a selfish jerk who only thought about himself. She helped others and did nice things and was generally a very pleasant person. She wasn't selfish.

The light tap on her door startled her away from her musings. She looked up to see him slowly peering around the door, looking slightly worn. He wore only a pair of pajama bottoms and his hair seemed to be sticking out in every direction. He rubbed his eyes and yawned loudly before speaking.

"I couldn't sleep. Your light was on."

She put down her pen and looked at him, eyes wide, signaling him that he needed to explain further.

"I just… I don't know, forget it," he said as he turned to leave.

She knew this was the part where she was supposed to swallow her pride and speak up. She'd read enough books and watched enough movies to know that it was her turn now. But she still couldn't bring herself to stop him.

"Goodnight, Derek," she said quietly as he softly closed her bedroom door.

She hated that she was wrong. She hated even more that he was right.


	2. Chapter 1

_I suppose I'm continuing this. Point of view is probably going to change throughout, but it'll be clearly indicated. The first part is Paul's point of view. Let me know what you think._

One: Paul

Casey had been pacing back and forth in front of my desk for the past ten minutes. She'd pause occasionally and look at me like she had something she wanted to say, but then she'd sigh loudly and continue the pacing. Some kids went through this every session. They'd pace and sigh, sigh and pace, and finally they'd speak up after much urging on my part. She was never one of them. Usually I had a hard time getting her to stop at the end of our session. The girl enjoyed talking about herself.

To be honest, it was actually kind of amusing to watch. I figured I'd have to speak up eventually, or she'd catch on that I was beginning to enjoy her obvious mental toil. I took one last sip of coffee and set my mug on my desk.

"Did something happen, Casey?"

She looked at me with a shocked look on her face. I think maybe she'd forgotten I was actually in the room with her. I suppressed a chuckle and continued.

"You've been pacing around my office since you got here. Don't take this the wrong way, but I normally have trouble getting you to stop talking, not _start_ talking."

Her eyes widened. She must not have heard the part where I asked her not to take it the wrong way. I should have expected that.

She finally stopped pacing and sat down in one of the chairs in front of my desk. I guess she'd decided now was a good time to start with the talking. She took a few deep breaths, keeping her eyes on her hands, and finally looked up and began to speak.

"Paul, do you think I'm selfish?"

Thankfully I'd finished my coffee by then, because I'm pretty sure I would have choked. Of course the girl was selfish. She was one of the most self-absorbed people I'd ever met. We met every Thursday afternoon for a session devoted entirely to her.

As the girl's counselor though, I figured that wasn't something I was supposed to say.

"Do you think you're selfish, Casey?"

I've found that, especially in her case, it was always better to let her answer her own questions. Most of the time she didn't even make me rephrase them; she just answered them on her own. This time was different, though, it seemed.

"I don't know. I mean, I never would have thought I was before, but now I really don't know."

"Before what, exactly?"

"Derek said I was selfish. But he's wrong, right? He's always wrong. I can't be selfish. I care about other people. I help my mom do the dishes and take care of Lizzie. I volunteer, Paul."

She was starting to work herself up. Pretty soon she would come to some sort of realization about what she needed to do, thank me, and rush out before I even figured out what sort of help I'd actually provided.

But then she stopped talking.

"Casey?"

"He's right, isn't he?"

"Do you think he's right?"

She sighed, "Maybe."

"But you don't know?"

"No. I mean, I think I do. It's just… a shock, you know? I'm the thoughtful, caring one. He's the selfish, inconsiderate jerk."

Somehow, I didn't think this realization was going to be quite the same.


	3. Chapter 3

Two: Noel

I saw Casey coming out of the guidance counselor's office looking very frazzled—very uncharacteristic of the girl.

I headed over, deciding to see what was up.

"Casey. You okay?"

She jumped. Apparently she hadn't seen me coming.

"Oh. Hey Noel. You startled me."

"I can see that," I said, smirking.

"Right," she said, giggling and shifting her weight uncomfortably, "I guess you can… do that… see things, I mean."

She smiled lamely as she finished. The girl was always kind of awkward, but this seemed a little extreme.

She turned to go, but I grabbed her elbow, keeping her in place.

She turned her eyes to me and blinked a few times.

Right. She obviously expected me to say something after I'd stopped her from leaving and all.

"Did something happen, Casey?"

"What do you mean? Why would you think that something happened?" she asked innocently.

"You just seem a little… I don't know… off."

She giggled a little before she spoke, which meant she was gearing up to brush of my concern with some easily believed lie.

"I'm just a little tired, that's all. I stayed up too late reading. I'm sure I'll be finre once I wake up a bit more."

She was so predictable.

I fought the urge to roll my eyes and forced a smile on my face.

"Okay then, but I'm here if you want to talk about anything."

Desperate always did look good on me.

Three: Casey

I know I'm a terrible liar. I'm usually proud of that fact, but today I couldn't help but wish I'd had at least a little more experience in the area.

Noel knew something was up when he saw me leaving Paul's office. I'm pretty sure he knew I was lying too.

Of course he knew. Even Marti could have picked up on that. I'm a terrible liar.

It wasn't even that big of a deal. I wasn't hiding any big secret. I just didn't want anyone else to look at me the way Paul had. It was like he couldn't believe I was even asking a question with such an obvious answer.

I was making my way to my English class when, once again, I forgot about the stairs. As I gathered my things from the fall I looked to see who I needed to apologize to for breaking my fall.

I froze. Derek was glaring at me from his spot on the ground.

"Really, Case? Couldn't stop thinking about yourself long enough to walk to class without injuring anyone?"

With that said, he turned and walked away.

"Derek!" I shouted after him.

He didn't even glance back. He just ignored me and kept walking. I sighed, picked up the last of my fallen books, and continued towards my class.


	4. Chapter 4

Four: Derek

I might have overreacted when I snapped at Casey about the stair incident. It's not like I've never been on the receiving end of her klutziness before. During her crush on Sam, she walked into everything she passed and knocked over anything that wasn't securely fastened. She passed me a lot during that time; luckily I was securely fastened, at least enough that she didn't actually knock me to the ground. Needless to say, I was pretty used to bumps and bruises when it came to Casey.

But this time was different. I was already mad at her, if for no reason other than she was invading my mind. My mind was the one place that was completely Casey-free and she had to go and ruin that.

I don't even know what was so different. It was a stupid fight, just like any other fight we'd had before. It started that way, at least. It's always the same story—she insults my appearance, I insult hers; she insults my effort, I insult hers. It's never anything with real substance. This time, though, I guess I'd just had enough. I let the superficial insults give way to real, hard jabs at character.

"Mr. Venturi, care to give us the answer to problem thirteen?"

Shit. I hadn't been listening, which my deer-in-the-headlights look made obvious to my ever impatient math teacher. I looked over to Sam, hoping he'd give me some clue to help me out, but no luck. He shrugged apologetically, silently thankful he wasn't in my position, I'm sure.

"Forty-seven?" I flashed a smile, hoping I could get by with being cute. Somehow I didn't think my charm was going to work on my balding, forty-something math teacher with the wrinkled khakis and stained tie.

"See me after class, Mr. Venturi." I was right about that charm not working.

I really couldn't afford to get stuck in detention after school. Coach had made it clear to us exactly how much he thought missing practice affected our games. Benched wasn't really a word I was familiar with. That wasn't going to change because of Casey, that was for sure.

"Sure thing, Mr. Mason." I sunk back in my chair, thinking I might be able to disappear for the rest of the class. Maybe if he couldn't see me he'd forget about giving me detention.

When the bell rang and the rest of the class rushed eagerly from the room, ignoring Mr. Mason's shouts to do a bunch of problems I never bothered to glance over, I hung back, attempting to look nonchalant.

"Mr. Venturi, care to explain to me why you seem incapable of paying attention in my class?"

"It's not that I wasn't paying attention, Mr. Mason, I just happen to zone out for a few minutes there in the middle. I was thinking about… last night's homework. Fascinating stuff, really, it is."

"You find matrix multiplication fascinating, Mr. Venturi?"

"Sure I do. Keanu's got nothing on this stuff." I honestly had no idea what this matrix multiplication stuff was, but I sure as hell knew what lying was.

"As much as I doubt you're even remotely telling the truth, I'm going to let you go with a warning. But next time this happens, you'll have detention. Is that clear, Mr. Venturi?"

"Yes, sir. Very clear." This man really liked my name, it seemed.

"You're free to go."

"Thank you, sir."

The smile may have failed me, but the lies never did.

I fled the classroom, not paying attention, and collided with another body as I rounded the corner.

I looked up, ready to snap at whoever this was to watch where they were walking, when she beat me to it.

"Seriously, Derek? Can't stop thinking about yourself long enough to leave a classroom? It's a little sad, don't you think?" Great. She was throwing my words back in my face.

Maybe detention would have been better.


	5. Chapter 5

Five: Casey

Five: Casey

It wasn't really like me to be sarcastic. I knew that. He just gave me the perfect opportunity and I really couldn't resist and… oh my god I sound like him.

This was not good. Derek was rubbing off on me. Maybe I could convince my mom that having separate houses was good for married couples and we could live down the street or something.

"Casey. Hello? Casey!" I was suddenly aware of Emily snapping her fingers in my face. We were having lunch and talking about… I actually had no idea what we were talking about.

"Sorry, Em. What were you saying?"

She sighed, apparently not thrilled at having to repeat herself, "I was just asking if you'd started that project for Mr. Harper's class yet."

I stabbed at my salad, pushing the lettuce around my plate in an effort to think of a discrete way to change the subject.

"I, uhm, yeah, I started it. We have awhile, though, so it's not really that big of a deal. Let's talk about math. How did you feel about the lecture today?"

She raised her eyebrow in suspicion. "Casey, you're being weirder than normal. I hate math, you hate math, why do you want to talk about the math lecture?"

"I just found Mr. Jasper's lecture fascinating. The whole pi think really is amazing, don't you think so?"

I was digging myself in deeper, but I really couldn't stop now.

"I mean, who decided that we were going to just use the first two of the decimal places? Why not three or four or even eight? I wonder how many I could memorize…"

"Casey! I don't care about pi! If you really don't want to talk about the project, it's fine, but let's talk about boys or clothes or, I can't believe I'm saying this, whatever annoying thing Derek did to you today. Anything but pi and its many many decimal places."

The project. I really didn't want to talk about the giant, half of our grade, multi-genre self-examination we had to do for our final English project. Not after last night.

"Sorry, Em. I honestly haven't really seen Derek today. I bumped into him this morning, and he bumped into me this afternoon. There were some snide remarks, but nothing eventful," I said, deciding to just play it cool.

"That's it? I figured there would be more. What's your big hang-up with the project, anyway?" She wasn't letting it go. Damn.

I'd stalled as long as I could. I sighed, putting my fork back down on the table, done with my salad for the time being. "I started my self-examination last night and I don't know what happened, but it started this huge fight with Derek, and not a normal fight where he tells me I'm ugly and I tell him he's immature. This was different. This was more… real, I guess."

"More real?"

"He said I was selfish, Em."

"Okay…"

"Emily!"

"What? It's not like it's that big of a deal, is it? I mean, it's Derek; he insults you all the time. Why are you so concerned with this particular insult?"

"Because. I just am." I picked up my fork and returned to stabbing the leaves of my salad, this time with a bit more force than was probably necessary or helpful.


	6. Chapter 6

Six: Emily

"Really Sam, you should have seen her, she was really freaked out about this project. She was acting even stranger than normal."

"Strange how, exactly?"

"Well, for starters, she wanted to talk about pi. 3.14 pi, I mean." I threw the last of my books into my locker and slammed the thing shut. Sam jumped a little; apparently I'd slammed it a little harder than I realized.

"Sorry," I said with a sheepish grin.

He just laughed and continued, "Why would she want to talk about pi? Even if the project was stressing her out, which doesn't really make any sense, seeing as it was only assigned yesterday…"

"Seriously, the rest of us haven't even started working on the thing."

"Well, it is Casey, after all."

I gave him a knowing look as we started toward our final class.

"She said something about a fight with Derek. Has he said anything?"

"Seriously? When is there _not_ a fight with Derek?"

"Speaking of Derek, where is he?" I looked around the classroom as we walked in, noticing a severe lack of our favorite slacker.

"He ditched after sixth hour."

My eyes went wide, "Uh oh."

"What?"

"Casey started rambling on earlier, too fast for even me to keep up, saying something about not feeling well. She headed home after sixth hour."

We exchanged knowing looks as the bell rang and we headed to our seats. There was no way this could end well.

Seven: Derek

He'd been asked to stay behind for an impromptu meeting with Ms. Daniels after she made the assignment yesterday. She wanted to talk to him personally—thought the project would be good for him and hoped he'd actually put some effort into it.

It was the way she'd said _actually_ that got to him. He knew he wasn't winning any gold stars with his school work, but he wasn't sure he liked the condescending yet hopeful tone she had used. It was like she wanted him to be that guy from the movie who slacks off and acts out until some new teacher, fresh out of college with her pearls and cardigans, managed to motivate him and push him to succeed. Only this lady was insulting him in the process.

"Derek, I just see so much potential in you. I know if you were to take this project seriously you would really see the benefit," she'd said.

Bingo. She saw potential in him. They all saw potential in him. _She_ saw potential in him, which was what got him into this mess in the first place. It didn't mean that every single one of them didn't need to make a long-overdue trip to the eye doctor.

Noticing the growling his stomach had been doing for the past twenty minutes had suddenly gotten louder, he pulled his headphones off, tossing them haphazardly to the floor with everything else in his room, and headed down to the kitchen. He'd ditched after sixth hour, so no one was home yet and he had free reign over the kitchen and all of the junk food he could find.

As he made his way through the dining room, he saw her.

"What are you doing here?" She really was the last person he needed to see right now.

"Hm? Oh! Derek, hi." She had on a pair of orange rubber gloves and was elbow deep in hot, sudsy water. She'd managed to get suds in her hair and he noticed she was acting even stranger than normal.

"Right." He rolled his eyes and decided ignoring her was his best option. He passed her on his way to the fridge, nudging her a little in the process; just enough so that she splashed water all over herself.

"Der-ek!"

So much for ignoring her.

"Geez Space-Case, chill."

"Chill? Look what you did! I'm all wet!"

Indeed she was. He couldn't wait for college and the many wet t-shirt contests he was sure would come with it. Contests with real girls, of course.

"What I did? You're the klutz; we all know that, I just wanted some ice cream." With that, he opened the freezer and pulled out a pint of Ben and Jerry's, grabbed a spoon, and headed for the TV without a second glance toward the sink.


End file.
